One of the most difficult challenges, particularly in a same-sex relationship, is establishing boundaries with friends and blending with each others’ friends. Plus, doing this while remaining secure and making each other feel like she is the most important person in the world!

Ordinarily in lesbian relationships, the majority of friends are the same-sex. Friends can be intrusive, meddlesome, opinionated, jealous, rude and inconsiderate; however, they can also be fun, supportive, considerate, helpful, and great sounding boards. There is no doubt, friends will either play havoc on a relationship or be accepting and considerate.

Let’s work from the premise that the relationship is the top priority and friends are not (but still very important). There are several key areas to focus on that can immediately bolster the relationship. These areas need to be mutually established and respected:

Boundaries – Agree on parameters that are manageable. Determine what the negotiable and non-negotiable items are. Examples: Agree to both be home by 8pm, unless otherwise discussed; no answering phones during dinnertime; cell phones are off-limits when you crawl into bed. If you go to happy hour, invite the other to join or at least communicate plans and be home on time. Remember, these boundaries must be agreed upon. If you end up policing and penalizing because of the boundaries, what you have in place is not working. The boundaries are to be and feel respectful of each other, not to hold you hostage.

Communication – Make each other feel special, loved, secure and safe. Talk to each other about everything. Find out about what is important to each other, feelings, favorite things, pet peeves, goals and dreams, fears and phobias, food, children, families, etc. Get to really know each other better than anyone else. Build trust and respect. Make each other feel valued and important.

Common Interests – Explore what you enjoy doing together such as projects, travel, entertaining friends, cooking, golf, fishing, hiking, etc. It is not necessary to do everything together, but it is healthy to do some (enough) things together. It is important to have fun together and feel connected. Orchestrate your relationship so that you are not always running parallel, but have enough intersecting times that keep you in sync with each other.

Host social occasions – One way to blend with each other’s friends is to jointly host social times at your home such as dinners and game nights. Another is to plan outings with joint friends such as happy hours, going to dinner and movies, so forth. The key is to become more comfortable with each other’s friends. Make efforts to blend friends and be more inclusive.

Spontaneity – Surprise each other in ways that you know are appreciated and liked. Break the routine and break away from all others and do for each other. Make each other feel exceptional.

Happy, long-term relationships are to be nurtured treated as top priority. Focus on enjoying your time together. Include friends when it’s appropriate and mutually agreed upon. There should be no feeling of competing for time, attention and love! Friends are to be fun additions.

When applying for immigration to Canada via Citizenship & Immigration Canada (CIC) you must always have a principal applicant. This is the person who can fulfill the criteria of the particular immigration route you are choosing. It does not have to be the head of the household, nor does it have to be the male in a mixed sex relationship. You should look at the criteria and determine which family member will gain the most points or have the correct work history in order to qualify.

The principal applicant can then name spouses and dependent children as family members to be included in their application. Many people wrongly assume that a couple has to be heterosexual and married in order for their relationship to be recognized by CIC as valid, but this is not the case. CIC recognizes common-law relationships as well as same-sex relationships, but you do have to be aware of certain criteria that have to be met in order for your relationship to be accepted.

CIC Definitions:

Spouse: Two people of opposite or same-sex in a legally recognized marriage.Common-law: Two people of opposite or same-sex who are living in a conjugal relationship and have been doing so continuously for at least one year.Conjugal: Two people who live together and have significant commitment to one another i.e. financial, emotional, children etc.

Some issues may arise when applying for immigration to Canada that may never have been a factor before and could actually prevent the CIC from recognizing your relationship as common-law. If you know before hand what these issues might be you can prepare in advance and get your affairs in order so that when the time comes you have no problems proving your relationship. Muchmor Canada Magazine outlines the main problems and how you can prevent them.

When CIC accepts common-law relationships both heterosexual and gay or lesbian it has to receive proof from the couple that their relationship is real and not being used for the benefit of immigration. This means that you will need to prove that your relationship is conjugal. Evidence that you share a home, support each other financially, are in an emotional relationship and perhaps have children will all be taken into account.

This might not sound as if it could be a problem, but lets take a look at a couple of scenarios:

Scenario 1:

Jack and Ben are a gay couple who have been in a relationship for six years and have been living as a common-law couple for four years. Jack owned the property they live in before he met Ben and all the bills, mortgage etc are in his name only. Ben contributes toward the food and general living expenses as well as holidays the couple take. They each have separate bank accounts. This arrangement has worked well for them both and they have seen no reason to change.

Problem: Because on paper Ben has no connection to the property they live in there is no proof that they are living as a couple, other than their “word.” Although Ben pays as much financially into the relationship he has no bills, mortgage or household costs that can be shown to the CIC. Neither do they share a bank account and do they have no obvious financial commitment to each other. Therefore this may give rise to CIC rejecting their common-law relationship and refusing their application.

Scenario 2:

Mark and Sue have lived together for two years. Mark works full-time and is the only earner in the home as Sue is a stay-at-home mum to a daughter she has by another relationship. Mark has always looked after the bills and rent and Sue’s name is not on any of the official documentation i.e. rent, utility bills etc. They do have a joint bank account, but this is used for savings and holidays and not for the payment of household bills which come out of a bank account in Mark’s name only.

Problem: As with Scenario 1 CIC could refuse to accept their common-law relationship as on paper Sue has no connection to the joint home and cannot prove commitment to the relationship. Although they share a bank account, this does not prove a relationship as any two individuals can open a join bank account without being in a relationship. Remember all the bills come out of an account in Mark’s name.

Scenario 3:

Sally lives with her same-sex partner Amy in a rented apartment. The rental agreement is in Sally’s name as she lived there before she met Amy about 18 months ago. The rent includes all utilities, so no living expenses other than groceries and everyday living costs are payable. If they add Amy to the rental agreement it will prompt a new contract being put in place, increasing their monthly rent, so they have left things as they are. They both have separate bank accounts.

Problem: Once again one partner in the relationship cannot prove that they are in any way committed to the relationship or the property they live in. Again CIC could refuse to accept this relationship and refuse their application.

Solutions

Fortunately most of these issues can be easily rectified well in advance of you needing to supply the information to CIC. By following Muchmor Canada Magazine suggestions you can prevent problems.

The key to this is preparation and timing. As soon as you know you will want to apply for immigration to Canada you should look at mortgage or rental agreements, utility bills such as electricity, gas, water, internet, television etc. bank accounts and investments. Make a list and note who’s name is included on each.

The next thing is to try to get as many of these items in both names as possible. Some will be easier than others, but perhaps the easiest is a joint bank account which you then use to pay your bills. If you can show that both your incomes go into one account and all your expenses are paid from that account it helps prove financial commitment to one another and a shared liability for the “marital” home.

Next try to add the additional name onto utility bills. Some companies will do this readily, others may take some patience and paperwork. If you cannot get all changed over, don’t worry. As long as you can show that many of your bills are in joint names this is okay. After all even legally married couples don’t always have all their bills in both names.

The biggest obstacle will be mortgage or rental agreements as these will require a legal change and may it may be to your financial disadvantage to change them. This is something you will have to discuss with your mortgage lender or landlord. Again if you cannot easily get this changed, do not despair. As long as you can get a joint bank account in place and can prove you share all or most of the household expenses you should be good to go.

The CIC understands that not every couple married or common-law will share absolutely everything. Many married couples still have separate bank accounts or pay separate bills or only have one wage earner who pays everything. But it is taken for granted that a married couple living in the same house are financially and emotionally committed to each other. The same consideration is not extended to common-law couples who rightly, or wrongly have to prove this fact.

Because CIC require you to be in a common-law relationship for at least one year before applying, you should get all these things in order as soon as possible. The information you give on your application needs to be relevant at the time you complete it, not at the time you expect it to be processed by CIC.

Always read, re-read and read again the application criteria to make sure you are complying correctly. It is easier to start things off right than to have to correct things later which may delay your processing time, or mean it gets rejected altogether.

There are very few silver bullets in life. I have yet to see the magic pill for weight loss. I am personally still looking for the five thousand dollar a day work from home business! I have no idea how people who make these claims, preying on people with real problems, sleep at night. Take a moment sometime and look at all the Christian “save your marriage” claims out there. Some of the products look more like comedy routines than real solutions. They are as laughable as they are sad.

Seldom are the real answers to complicated problems easy. Especially when you are dealing with personal relationships. Throw sex into the discussion and you can almost automatically expect limited breakthrough. Almost…

There are a couple simple truths in the world of sex and marriage that on the surface seem almost benign. But when you really GET these simple truths and you put them into practice you experience what you can quite possibly classify as your first real SILVER BULLET! Let’s break these “truths” into two different sections… “What men should know” and “What woman should know”. Let’s start with the men…!

Men are very simple creatures when it comes to sex. God knew how complicated women were going to be and felt he needed to even things up! (Sorry ladies…!) They say the average man (Christian or not) thinks about sex hundreds of times a day. That is probably a conservative estimate. Why is that you think? While we have no way of knowing for certain this is my understanding. Men are turned on by what they SEE. Sometimes I think mans visual response skips their brain and goes right to their mid section. How many movies have we all seen where a man and woman are sitting together and a beautiful woman walks buy causing the mans eyes to follow as though it is an involuntary act? Our vision starts off the sexual experience for us. We see and we act. Even if we choose to look away from that beautiful woman we have to deliberately make that choice.

When in that same movie the woman gets upset thinking this is an insult to her personally, she makes some comment challenging his commitment to her. As it sounds shallow for the man to say “hey, God made me that way” it is the truth. I am not saying this is a license for men to ogle every attractive woman they see. I believe deliberate “oogling” in the presence of your wife or girlfriend is insensitive and wrong. On the other hand, when out of instinct a man looks as a woman passes, and catches himself, his wife should commend him. He has just fought and won a battle to preserve her honor. That first glance is not about will power, the continued glaring is. This is the part where the woman need to understand how God created men. Woman need to understand what turns a man on sexually. This understanding is a little easier for woman as this is how the media tells us everyone is sexually excited.

Men Look at things and decide right there if they like them. Woman are no exception. There is a reason woman won’t leave the house in curlers. Why do women were high heels? Ask them. You will not hear the word comfort I assure you. Look at lesbians. Real lesbians. They use the term butch. If you look at these woman almost none of them dress in miniskirts and heels. They all wear Reebok tennis shoes and beige pants. Why? First reason is comfort. The second is there is no reason to wear heels and skirts. Woman could care less what other woman are wearing. They have no need to “hook” another woman visually. So ladies, do your best to understand this even if you don’t feel it. While your appearance is not the know all and end all of your relationship, to your husband it is a big part. Why? Because for whatever reason the Lord in his infinite wisdom made him.

Women. Being a Christian, heterosexual man I love women. I have zero clue how a man could have sex with another man. When God put a woman together physically he could not have done a better job. Man being designed first he knew we liked what we saw. Guys I am sure you will agree he did not disappoint. How much easier life would be if woman were “turned on” the same way men are. Unfortunately, the two processes are not even close.

Women are human. Christian or not does not matter. They like what they see as men do. They use there vision as a first response vehicle much like men do. That is where the similarity ends. The process that occurs after that can even trump that first opinion her eyes gave her. I wish I could say woman just “feel” their way through relationships. But that over simplifies what is really going on.

So, here we go. What turns a woman on? Being a Christian and holding the belief pre marital sex is wrong, The women we are discussing here are our wives. So, what turns our wives on? Seeing as this woman married you we can assume she finds you attractive on some level. She loves you. At some point the two of you enjoyed sex with one another. Hopefully. (There are untold numbers of woman however that never really enjoyed sex. They just “did it” because it was expected. Or to satisfy her husband. Never really knowing or understanding how to enjoy it. Some fundementalist Christian women believe it is somehow wrong to enjoy sex!! That is a whole other topic. Women, if that is you rejoice!! There is hope!! Stay tuned to these articles as we will be discussing that very subject). Guys, how do we get our wives to WANT to have sex with us?? Men like things in Steps so we can methodically follow them. Here are some steps you can take to begin the process..

Make the bed when you get up in the morning.

Make the kids lunch. Get them dressed and on their way to school.

Take out the trash

Clean the house

Vacuum

Dust

If you are going out that night make all the arraignments for the kids. Childcare, feeding them. Homework,etc.

Now guys, you might be looking at this list and laughing. Some of you might be in tears! It is my guess the majority of you just don’t get It. What does housework have to do with SEX? It is very simple. Now, as I explain this do yourself a HUGE favor. Do not try and make what I am saying more complicated than it is. Sometimes we don’t believe the simple thing works because it is so simple! WHY woman behave as they do is extremely complicated. HOW WE RESPOND to women is easy. Just so our response compliments how God created them. The list above is the women’s lingerie. A husband taking the time to do those things for his wife in the equivalent of the little black dress, black stockings and heels to a man. It’s her SEX ON A STICK!

Guys, our wives sex drive will always equal her sense of SECURITY. When we take the time to do the things that tell our wives “you matter, I understand how tough being a mom can be, I appreciate you, I need you, I thank God you are my wife” we provide the security every woman NEEDS. Guys, if we want our wives to respond to us sexually we need to respond to them in the way God made them. Do yourself a favor and give these things a try. What type things can you see would make your wife feel more secure? More appreciated? Telling our wives we love them is easy. Showing them is easy. Telling them AND showing them can be a challenge. When a woman sees her husband engaged in her daily activities, giving her some “me” time… Wow. Guys, the dividends are amazing. Think about this… How many times do you see really beautiful woman with men totally out of their league? Fat, bald guys with these 10.5 women on their arm?? I see them all the time. It used to bewilder me until I understood what made women tick. Christian or not. The first thing we might think is the guy has a ton of money. Maybe so for some. But isn’t that a form of security?? The biggest mistake men and woman make in their sex relationship is the belief we are aroused sexually in the same way! You can see the bedlam caused not understanding how God created us. Again, these truths are universal, Christian or not.

So, lets recap.

Men are visual beings. We are aroused by what we see. Period, Sure, love comes into play and we have a few feelings… a few. Men love sex with a beautiful women. So you women out there… If you want more attention sexually from your husband, rolling over in the morning with your hair going everywhere and breath that could peel paint is not your best plan. I love the song from R&B artist Beyonce’ called Freakum Dress. Get in your closet and pull out your Freakum Dress, put it on and get his attention. As I am a huge proponent of staying in your best possible shape physically for your spouse, sadly for women this weighs a little more heavily on your shoulders. Sorry ladies… Hey! Blame the Lord!!

Women like an attractive man. However woman are far more interested in safety and security. Being made to believe she is loved and the worth while. I hate the word feeling (feelings). It goes far deeper than just “feeling” this way once in a while. BEING safe and secure is a necessity for every woman. Even Gloria Steinem. The benefit to men for providing this environment is great sex!! So guys, Start with the list above and add activities particular to your relationship. Tell her your plan. Tell her ” I want to improve our sex life. I’ll take care of the kids and the house today. Go take the day and do as you please!! ” Then keep helping around the house, with the kids, etc. This will create the secure environment your wife needs. If Christian Sex 101 were a book, this would be in the first chapter. The good news is you’ll find many other areas of your life improving along with your sexual relationship.

Guys and Gals… You have the keys to the kingdom. Now GO DO IT!! This isn’t a complete Guide to Christian Sex but it is a good start!!